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Of the 56 cases of assault on LGBT Jamaicans documented in
a new report from Human Rights Watch, police made only four
arrests.
J. Lester Feder BuzzFeed Staff
posted on Oct. 21, 2014, at 1:54 p.m.
Widespread violence in Jamaica has driven some LGBT youth
to live in the sewers of the capital, Kingston, after they fled
violence in their home communities. A Human Rights Watch
report released Tuesday shows that police do little to protect
LGBT people when they do report violence. Police are known
to have made arrests in only four of the 56 cases Human Rights
Watch documented, and more than half of those interviewed
who had been attacked said they were too afraid of retaliation
or of being outed to even report assaults.
The Jamaican government is now in the midst of reviewing the
Sexual Offenses Act in a process that the country’s justice
minister, Mark Golding, told BuzzFeed News last year might
be a vehicle for repealing the country’s sodomy law. But although
Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller has endorsed repeal of the
law criminalizing homosexuality, she has also said doing so must
be “based on the will of the constituents” and is “not a priority.”
A challenge to the law pending before Jamaica’s highest court
was withdrawn in August by the plaintiff, Javed Jaghai, because
of threats against his family.
A new video from Human Rights Watch documents the widespread
threat of violence towards LGBT people, where there are an average
of almost 60 anti-LGBT assaults each year:
WITH INFORMATIONS FROM "Buzzfeed.com"
a new report from Human Rights Watch, police made only four
arrests.
J. Lester Feder BuzzFeed Staff
posted on Oct. 21, 2014, at 1:54 p.m.
Widespread violence in Jamaica has driven some LGBT youth
to live in the sewers of the capital, Kingston, after they fled
violence in their home communities. A Human Rights Watch
report released Tuesday shows that police do little to protect
LGBT people when they do report violence. Police are known
to have made arrests in only four of the 56 cases Human Rights
Watch documented, and more than half of those interviewed
who had been attacked said they were too afraid of retaliation
or of being outed to even report assaults.
The Jamaican government is now in the midst of reviewing the
Sexual Offenses Act in a process that the country’s justice
minister, Mark Golding, told BuzzFeed News last year might
be a vehicle for repealing the country’s sodomy law. But although
Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller has endorsed repeal of the
law criminalizing homosexuality, she has also said doing so must
be “based on the will of the constituents” and is “not a priority.”
A challenge to the law pending before Jamaica’s highest court
was withdrawn in August by the plaintiff, Javed Jaghai, because
of threats against his family.
A new video from Human Rights Watch documents the widespread
threat of violence towards LGBT people, where there are an average
of almost 60 anti-LGBT assaults each year:
WITH INFORMATIONS FROM "Buzzfeed.com"
